Category Archives: Diet

Do you think protein bars are good for you? Reconsider

Chocolate is the leading ingredient in almost 40 percent of protein bars, with most as well being loaded with excess weight and containing added sugar and salt, according to a new report by Safefood.

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The research also noted that 37 per cents of persons believed protein bars were “healthy” with in Ipsos MRBI survey of double,000 people in 2018.
However, the studies remarked that when contrasting current protein intakes among adults with exactly what is recommended, both females and males are fully consuming more protein than meets the necessary needs from your diet. The studies evaluated the nutritional content of 83 high-protein snack foods and drinks intended for sale in supermarkets on the island of Ireland. These kinds of foods included protein bars, yoghurts, yoghurt-style products and milk drinks.

According to industry sources, there really was a 498 percent growth in products launched between 2010 and 2016 by using a high-protein claim.
Safefood director of physical health and nutrition Dr Catherine Conlon said the majority of bars have calorie contents clone of the a bar of chocolate.

Author Resource Box:
https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/food-and-drink/think-protein-bars-are-good-for-you-think-again-1.4081063

Are Probiotics Safe for Your Immune System?

A method to foster healthy intestinal bacteria is usually to eat more like the foods these bugs prefer to eat—namely, fiber. Drinking plant fibers from vegetables, fruits, legumes, wholesome grains, nuts, and seeds resemble filling a bird-feeder with the sort of seeds that the beautiful songbirds you desire attract just like best buy. If you feed them, they will come!

Are Probiotics Safe for Your Immune System?
Kefir. Credit: Getty Images

If we wish to attract a lot of several types of songbirds—er, bacteria—then we wish to set out a variety of foods. This means you don’t are just looking to get all your fiber from a single source, for example, a fiber supplement. You want to get it fiber from lots of various kinds of vegetables, fruits, legumes, grains, nuts, and seeds.

Another way to nurture a healthy gut is to consume foods that incorporate beneficial bacteria. This includes stuff like yogurt, kefir, as well as other cultured dairy products; kim-chi, sauerkraut, and other fermented vegetables; miso, tempeh, natto, along with other fermented soy products; and kombucha, which is certainly a kind of fermented tea.

Now, in all honesty, it’s not entirely clear specifically how many of those bacteria survive their trip through the large intestine and set up permanent housekeeping within the gut. But even if they should are simply passing through, they appear to be the most suitable brand of houseguest that will leave the location just a little more than they found it.

Author Resource Box:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-probiotics-safe-for-your-immune-system/

10 Foods That Fight Inflammation

There are many drugs that help fight inflammation, but did you know there are also foods that fight inflammation? Here’s a list of foods that have been found to decrease inflammation in the body.

Extra-virgin olive oil

Extra-virgin olive oil – an unrefined type of olive oil – contains a substance called oleocanthol that interferes with two enzymes (COX-1 and COX-2) involved with inflammation in the body. In fact, a 2005 study in the journal Nature found that oleocanthol inhibits inflammation in a way that’s identical to the painkiller ibuprofen.

Red wine

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Red wine contains a compound called resveratrol, which has been found to have both anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties. Scientists say the presence of this compound may help explain the so-called “French paradox” as to why the French – who drink red wine with most meals – can eat a diet that’s actually quite high in saturated fats and yet have healthy arteries and hearts

Tea

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Generally, any beverage that is high in water content will have anti-inflammatory qualities, and tea is a great choice. Teas such as white tea, oolong, and green tea are full of catechins, antioxidant compounds that reduce artery plaque and inflammation. Tea also has been linked to reduced risks of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

Grass-fed beef

If you’re eating beef that’s not specifically sold as “grass-fed,” it means the cows were fed a high-calorie diet of corn and grain in an effort to fatten them quickly. Corn and grain are full of omega-6 fatty acids, which have been linked to inflammation. Grass-fed cows are leaner, and their meat is rich in healthy compounds such as omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin E.

Oily fish

You’ve probably seen bottles of fish oil supplements in your pharmacy or grocery store, but you can get the same healthy boost from going straight to the source, as well. Oily fish such as salmon, sardines, and tuna are fish that have fatty oils throughout the fillets and in the area around the gut, rather than just in just the liver. Experts say eating one to two servings of these fish per week can reduce inflammation.

Cocoa

Cocoa contains anti-inflammatory compounds called flavanols, substances that reduce both blood clotting and inflammation in the body. Enjoying a cup or two of hot cocoa per week can help reduce inflammation, particularly if it’s made with skim or low-fat milk to keep down the drink’s content of saturated fats. Keep in mind, however, that trying to get your cocoa in the form of candy will load you up on saturated fats.

Cranberries

Cranberries are a powerhouse food, with studies linking the red berry to such benefits as inhibiting cancerous tumors and lowering bad (LDL) cholesterol. Scientists say the fact that the berries are rich in anti-inflammatory antioxidants contribute to their healthful effects. As a bonus, cranberries also contain tannins, substances that can act as a natural antibacterial agent to fight urinary tract and E. coli infections

Grapes

A 2004 study found that people with stable coronary disease lowered the amount of inflammatory markers in their blood by drinking Concord grape juice. This finding was likely due to the presence of resveratrol in the grapes’ skins, which inhibits inflammation and may even help to fight cancer. Eating grapes – and not drinking them – also adds fiber to the grapes’ benefits and eliminates any added sugar.

Walnuts

Walnuts contain the “plant version” of omega-3 fatty acids, a substance known as ALA, which reduces inflammation in the body. In a 2004 study published in the Journal of Nutrition, scientists found that people who ate at least 2.3 ounces of walnuts and flaxseed (which also contains ALA) daily had reduced levels of inflammatory markers such as C-reactive protein (CRP), a major indicator of a person’s risk for heart disease.

Broccoli

Broccoli is a virtual disease fighter, rich in such healthy compounds as beta-carotene, vitamin B folate, vitamin C, and the inflammation-fighting flavanoid kaempferol. Broccoli also contains sulforaphane, which experts say helps the body cleanse itself of cancer-causing compounds.


If You Haven’t Noticed, Were you aware That The Label for all Your meal Is Changing?

New health claims, symbols, and seals of approval turn up on food packaging when you go grocery shopping. But when you’re one of the many 59% of shoppers who nearly always reads a label before purchasing new food, you’ve seen hardly any change in the nutrition facts label. That number-filled panel upon the back of a given package hadn’t changed since 2003—when trans fat was added. The current updates that started in 2016 and are generally still underway, are considerably more obvious.

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Beginning January 1, 2020 large food manufacturers needs to be in a location that met with the FDA’s new nutrition facts label design (smaller manufacturers contain an additional year). If you’re a label reader, you’ve noticed many labels already chose new design.

Author Resource Box:
https://www.bhg.com/news/nutrition-facts-label-change/

Exactly what is Vitamin F? Uses, Benefits, and Food List

Vitamin F is certainly not a vitamin within the traditional understanding of the saying.

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Rather, vitamin F is basically a term loads of fats — alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) and linoleic acid (LA). They are necessary regular body functions, including aspects of brain and heart healthy living .

ALA is basically a a part of the omega-3 fat family, while LA is a member of the omega-6 family. Common forms of both include vegetable oils, nuts, and seeds.

They were sourced out of the 1920s when scientists showed that fat-free diets had uncomfortable side effects on rats. Initially, the scientists suspected the rats were deficient in a new vitamin they called vitamin F — later discovered to be ALA and LA .

Author’s reference: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vitamin-f

It is Amazing that the Basic Link Between Body Mass and the Immunity

It’s simple: Eat less.
Sometimes combined with the directive move more, this mantra has a clear point. In case you can’t reduce weight, you might be either stupid or lazy—or, probably, both.

A small bowl of colorful shaved ice

But if things were that simple, diets would work. Middle-aged people would not suddenly start increasing body weight despite eating and moving similarly every year. No one would need to endure the population of one friend with the “fast metabolism” who can eat anything he wants. And who, even though he knows you’re on any diet, says through his overstuffed mouth, “I couldn’t even add pounds in the event I tried.”

Instead, it is becoming clear that some people’s guts are simply more streamlined than others’ at extracting calories from food. When a couple eats the same 3,000-calorie pizza, for example, their bodies absorb different levels of energy. And those calorie-converting abilities can change over the person’s lifetime with age along with other variables.

The question is, why? And is it possible to make changes, in case a person needed to?

If so, the answer will involve the trillions of microbes in our intestines and how they operate in concert with another variable that’s just beginning to get attention. Your immunity determines stages of inflammation in the gut that are constantly shaping the way we digest food—how many calories get absorbed, and how many nutrients simply pass through.

The partnership between microbes and weight gain has long been overlooked in humans, but people have known about similar effects in animals for decades. After World War II, antibiotics became affordable and abundant for the first time. Farmers began giving the medication for their livestock—for example, as a treatment for a milk cow’s infected udder—and noticed that animals who got antibiotics grew larger and more quickly.
This led to a flood of patent applications for antibiotic-laden foods for every variety of livestock. In 1950, the medication company Merck filed a patent for “a method of accelerating the growth of animals” with “a novel growth-promoting factor” that has been, simply, penicillin. Eli Lilly patented three new antibiotics to mix directly into the feed of sheep, goats, and cattle because the microbe-killing agents “increased feed efficiency.” Within the ensuing decades, it became standard practice to give livestock copious doses of antibiotics to make them grow faster and larger, although no person knew why this happened, or what other effects the practice might have.

Researchers have only recently shown that these antibiotics kill off many of the microbes that occur normally in the gut and help livestock, and people, digest food. By breaking up nutrients and helping them flow through the walls of the bowel, these microbes function a sort of gatekeeper between what exactly is eaten as well as what makes it directly into the body.
Killing them is not without consequences. Similar to how antibiotics are associated with faster growth in cattle, a decrease in diversity in the human microbiome is associated with obesity. As the usage of animal antibiotics exploded in the twentieth, so too did usage in humans. Increase use of coincides having the obesity epidemic. This might be a spurious correlation, of course—lots of things have already been upon the rise since the ’50s. But dismissing it entirely would require ignoring a growing number of evidence that our metabolic health is inseparable beginning with the health in our gut microbes.

In 2006, Jeffrey Gordon, a biologist at Washington University in St. Louis, reported that the microbiomes of obese mice had something in accordance: In comparison to their lean counterparts, the heavier mice had fewer Bacteroides and more Firmicutes species within their guts. What’s more, biochemical analyses showed that this ratio made the microbes better at “energy harvest”—essentially, extracting calories from food and passing it into the human body. That is, even though mice ate precisely the same amount and kind of food, the bacterial populations meant that many developed metabolic problems, while some didn’t. Similar bacterial patterns have since been confirmed in obese humans.

What’s more, Gordon found, the microbiome associated with obesity is transferable. In 2013, his lab took gut bacteria from pairs of human twins in which only one twin was obese, then fed the samples to mice. The mice given bacteria beginning with the obese humans quickly gained weight. The others did not.

Intestinal microorganisms are likewise transferred between humans, using fecal transplants, as a possible experimental treatment for serious infections like Clostridium difficile. In one study, obese patients who received transplants from lean donors later had healthier responses to insulin.

Short of this kind of hard reset considering the microbiome, preliminary research has demonstrated that adding also a single bacterial species to the person’s gut can alter her metabolism. Within tests reported last month within the journal Nature Medicine, people who took a probiotic containing Akkermansia muciniphila—which is usually found in greater amounts in non-obese people—saw subtle metabolic improvements, including weight loss.

The research authors aren’t suggesting that anyone go out and obtain this bacterium. But is known as a “proof of concept” regarding the idea that it’s possible to change a person’s microbiome in ways which have metabolic benefits.

Because leanness and obesity seem to be transmissible throughout the microbiome, “metabolic disease turns out to be, in certain ways, like an infectious disease,” says Lora Hooper, the chair considering the immunology department at the University of Texas Southwestern Hospital. Hooper did her postdoctoral research in Gordon’s lab in St. Louis. While other researchers focused on the gut microbiome itself, she took an interest within the immunity. Specifically, she wanted to know how an inflammatory response could influence these microscopic populations, and thus be related to gaining weight.

During the last decade or so, multiple studies have proven that obese adults mount less effective immune responses to vaccinations, and also that both overweight and underweight people have elevated rates of infection. But these were long assumed to become effects of obesity, not causes.

“When I started my lab there wasn’t much found how immunity perceives the gut microbes,” Hooper says. “Many people thought the gut immunity might be the type of blind to them.” To her, it was obvious that this couldn’t be the case. A person’s gut is host to be about 100 trillion bacteria. They serve vital metabolic functions, but can quickly kill someone if they get into the bloodstream. “So clearly the immune system has got to become involved in maintaining them,” she says. It made sense to her that even subtle changes within the functioning of the immunity could influence microbial populations—and, hence, gaining weight and metabolism.

This theory was confirmed late last month in a paper in Science. Zac Stephens, a microbial ecologist with the University of Utah, and his colleagues had been collaborating with mice with altered immune T cells. They noticed that over time, these mice “ballooned,” as Stephens puts it. One of his colleagues started summoning them “pancakes.”

To determine how such an immune change may cause obesity, they tested the biomes considering the mice with and without having the immune alteration. They found that healthy mice have lots of bacteria coming from a genus called Clostridia, but few from Desulfovibrio, and also that their guts let most fat pass throughout. People who have a restructured immune system had fewer Clostridia and more Desulfovibrio, and this microbial balance helped the gut absorb more fats from food. These mice gained more weight and exhibited indications of diabetes type 2.

“Whether this applies in humans, we don’t know,” Hooper says, “but this can be a tantalizing clue.”

Mice aren’t humans, but their microbiomes are about as complex as our own. Reduced Clostridia and increased Desulfovibrio are seen in people with obesity and kind 2 diabetes. Bacteria can reasonably be expected to operate similarly within the guts of different species. But even if they can don’t, this experiment is a demonstration of principle: The immune system helps control the composition of the gut microbiome.

It does so by regularly mounting low-level immune responses to maintain populations of bacteria in order. “The gut is under a continuing state of inflammation, so to speak—constant immune stimulation from all the microbes,” says Stephens, pushing back upon the common misconception that inflammation is always bad. The role of considering the immune system within the gut would be to maintain balance. Changes to the body’s defenses, which could happen due to age or illness, can cause certain species to flourish in exchange for others.

This is the interesting part to Steven Lindemann, a researcher at Purdue University who was not involved in the Utah study. He studies the effects of foods upon the gut microbiome. “Although we all know that, on the balance, diet is the strongest contributor to gut microbiome composition,” he explained, this study means that when immune control over the colon stops working, growth could become unchecked and lead to further problems with metabolic regulation.

Lindemann says the fact that your immunity regulates the inhabitants of the small intestine is well established. He compares the bowel wall to the customs checkpoint: The goal is to weed out bad actors and illegal cargo, but allow legitimate trade to progress as regularly as possible. In the case of the immune-altered mice, he states, “we have a colonic border patrol that’s seemingly purpose is to lunch, allowing bad actor Desulfovibrio to bloom.”
If similar microbial changes have comparable effects in humans, it very well could have far-reaching implications for our particular diets. The very ideas of “nutritional value” and “calorie content” of food seem to vary based on the microbial population of the individual eating it and, potentially, her immune status. A person’s microbes—and those contained in any given food—would need to be regarded as another ­component considering the already flimsy calories-in, calories-out equation. This would also compound the difficulties already facing nutrition labels.
People trying to control their weight might conclude that tinkering with their microbiomes is the solution. This stands to support the already dubious and barely regulated industry of “probiotic” supplements, that have been projected to progress to $7 billion by 2025. But the answer probably won’t be so simple.

“A lot of the most recent research on probiotics suggests it’s really hard to keep and sustain new communities,” Stephens says. The immune system could explain that. “It might be that your immune response gets ‘stuck’ from a young age based upon what you’ve exposed it into. Probiotics might not be enough to change a person’s microbiome, because your immune system determined ahead of time that certain microbes are either appropriate or inappropriate in your gut.”

Stephens says the relationship between weight and the immune system will probably have got a lot more complicated before it gets simpler. Which makes it hard to give concrete advice. “Keeping diverse gut microbes with diverse dietary sources is perhaps the safest advice for now,” he states. “That will stimulate the ideal, strong immunity that can learn and regulate and do all the things it does, in ways we’re just beginning to comprehend.”
If all this uncertainty makes nutrition guidelines and nutrition even more inscrutable, additionally it stands to carry out some great by undermining the moralizing and simplistic character judgments often associated with body mass. Seeing obesity being a manifestation of the interplay between many systems—genetic, microbial, environmental—invites the realization that human physiology has changed along with our relationship to the species in and around us. As these new scientific models unfold, they impugn the thought of weight as a possible individual character flaw, revealing it regarding the self-destructive myth it has always been.

Author Resource Box:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/08/inflammations-immune-system-obesity-microbiome/595384/

Could taking a D supplement slow diabetes progression?

New Canadian research has found that having a D supplement could help slow down the progression of type 2 diabetes with those who’ve been recently diagnosed with the condition, or those who show signs of prediabetes.

Led by researchers at the Université Laval in Quebec, the brand new small-scale study looked at 96 participants who were either newly clinically recognized as having type 2 diabetes or at high risk of developing the condition, a disorder generally known as prediabetes, that can be identified by several risk factors such as obesity or perhaps a family history of the disease.

Less participants were arbitrarily assigned to receive a high dose of vitamin D3 (5000 iu, which happens to be approximately about 10 times the recommended dose) once daily for six months, while the better half were assigned to receive a daily placebo. The scientists measured markers of insulin function and glucose metabolism before and once the six months.

The findings, published in the European Journal of Endocrinology, revealed that vitamin D levels were substantially higher within the group who had taken a complement in comparison with those who had taken the placebo. In addition, taking vitamin D supplements appeared to significantly improve the action of insulin within the muscle tissue of participants after 6 months.

Preceding Research has suggested that low d levels really are a risk factor for developing diabetes type 2. However, research studiesinvestigating whether vitamin D supplementation can change metabolic function have produced inconsistent outcomes. The scientists say this could be due to a low number of study participants, or because participants with normal vitamin D levels at the start were metabolically healthy or had been existing with diabetes type 2 for a long period of time.

Study researcher Dr. Claudia Gagnon commented, “The reason we saw improvements in glucose metabolism following d supplementation with those at higher risk of diabetes, or with newly diagnosed diabetes, while other studies didn’t demonstrate an impact in people with long-standing diabetes type 2 is unclear. This could be mainly because that improvements in metabolic function are harder to detect in those with longer-term disease or that the longer treatment time is needed to see the benefits.”

She recommends further studies to enquire how different people reply to d supplementation and if the constructive effect on metabolism present in this study can be maintained in the longer term.

“Diabetes type 2 and prediabetes really are a growing public health concern and although our results are promising, further studies will be needed to confirm our findings, to identify whether some individuals may benefit more out of this intervention, and to evaluate the safety of high-dose vitamin D supplementation again and again. In the meantime I would recommend that current vitamin D supplementation recommendations be followed,” said Gagnon.

Author Resource Box:
https://news.yahoo.com/could-taking-vitamin-d-supplement-slow-diabetes-progression-100704551.html

For healthy blood pressure,do you believe that both numbers matter?

The bottom number in a blood pressure levels reading (the diastolic pressure) has sometimes played second fiddle to the top number (systolic) in clinical settings, but new research confirms that both numbers are very important in determining an individual’s heart disease risk.

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The study, from researchers at Kaiser Permanente in California, was published Wednesday when you look at the New England Journal of Medicine.

“Although systolic does count for a bit more in terms associated with threat of coronary attack and stroke, diastolic raised blood pressure is a detailed second, and it’s really a completely independent predictor of those risks,” said lead author Dr. Alexander Flint, a stroke specialist with Kaiser Permanente.

A top diastolic number “really really should not be ignored,” he added. “We should not declare victory simply because one number is under control. We must look closely at both.”

Systolic refers to the level of pressure in an individual’s arteries, once the heart squeezes and sends blood through the entire body. Diastolic is the pressure in the arteries between heart beats.

The research analyzed more than 36 million blood pressure readings from 1.3 million adults. All were people in Kaiser Permanente in Northern California. Most were white; just 7.5 percent were black.

Reference

For bloof pressure both numbers matter, https://www.nbcnews.com/health/heart-health/healthy-blood-pressure-both-numbers-matter-n1030851

Did you know that cardiovascular risk linked not to weight, but to body fat storage?

By studying a sizable cohort of females that has been already through menopause, researchers are finding that cardiovascular risk is related to body shape, which results from how fat is distributed in the human body.

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New research implies that in women over 50, body shape is associated with cardiovascular risk.

Existing research reports have suggested that any particular one’s body mass index (BMI), calculated in mention of the their total weight and height, is linked to the chance of experiencing cardiovascular events.

Thus, the higher an individual’s BMI, the more their chance of experiencing stroke, heart problems, and similar events and conditions.

However, new research, through the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in New York, NY, as well as other institutions, points to some other potential factor, namely, where fat is stored in the torso — for women older than 50, at the very least.

The latest study — the findings of which appear in European Heart Journal — has looked over data from 161,808 women aged 50–79 to learn whether BMI or fat distribution was associated with cardiovascular risk.

All the participants had enrolled in the ladies’s Health Initiative between 1993 and 1998. Follow-up home elevators the participants’ health was available from that period to your end of February 2017.

None of these women had cardiovascular disease at baseline. Through the entire study period, however, the researchers recorded 291 new cases of cardiovascular disease.

Reference

Cardiovascular risk linked not to weight, but to body fat storage. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325621.php

Can you believe that millions of deaths may be tied to not eating enough fruits and vegetables?

apples
© andy0man

New research finds that inadequate intake produce may make up for 2.8 million deaths annually.

I will now put on my mother hat and tell you this: Eat your fruits and vegetables.

Here’s why. A new study finds that inadequate intake of produce may make up for 2.8 million deaths, globally, from heart condition and strokes annually. The researchers concluded that low fruit intake resulted in 1.8 million cardiovascular deaths in twenty ten. I believe that not eating enough vegetables resulted in 2 million deaths.” Fruits and vegetables certainly are a modifiable factor of diet that can impact preventable deaths globally,” said lead study author Victoria Miller, a postdoctoral researcher along at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. “Our findings indicate the call for population-based efforts to increase fruit and vegetable consumption through the entire world.”

The researchers used data from 2010 and found:

  • Suboptimal fruit consumption generated in nearly 1.3 million deaths from stroke and even more than 520,000 deaths from the disease of the coronary artery.
  • Suboptimal vegetable consumption brought about around 200,000 deaths from stroke and more than 800,000 deaths from the condition of the coronary artery.

For the study, the researchers used dietary guidelines and studies of cardiovascular risk factors to come up with a fruit and vegetable standards, they defined:

Optimal fruit intake: 300 grams per day, equivalent to roughly two small apples. 
Optimal intake of vegetables: Including legumes, 400 grams per day, equivalent to about three cups of raw carrots.

The data they used came from 113 countries, comprising around 82 percent of the world’s population.

Countries in South Asia, East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa had low fruit intake and high rates of associated stroke deaths. Countries in Central Asia and Oceania had low vegetable intake and high rates of associated coronary heart disease.

The maps below show the percentage of cardiovascular deaths (CVD) attributable to suboptimal vegetable and fruit intake in countries around the world.

fruit map

Global Dietary Database 2010/Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy at Tufts University/CC BY 4.0

vegetable map

Global Dietary Database 2010/Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy at Tufts University/CC BY 4.0

Perhaps the United States, with all of our relative abundance and free natural resources, did not fare that well. Inside the U.S., avoiding food enough vegetables defined 82,000 cardiovascular deaths while suboptimal fruit was linked to 57,000 deaths regarding the year.

Reference

Millions of deaths tied to not eating enough fruits and vegetables.https://www.treehugger.com/health/millions-cardiovascular-deaths-attributed-not-eating-enough-fruits-and-vegetables.html